thunderstruck | book #2 | discontinued

I I I

Something was wrong. Tykon could sense it as soon as he arrived home after a long night spent with Annika. In fact, he had known even before then. Perhaps it was the way that the Principle Warlock had looked at him upon returning to his manor after the battle, with pity and sorrow, as though he had wanted to say something to Tykon but could not find the words—or didn't want to find the words. Perhaps it was also the way that, afterwards, he had told Tykon that he was relieved from his duty of caring for his daughter. That he must go home at once, for his father was expecting him.

He closed his eyes and inhaled, trying to shake away the thoughts and fears that gnawed at his brain. Worrying, he thought, would get him nowhere, but then, if there was nothing to worry about, why did the house feel so strange? Why had he been met with a heavy silence that pressed uncomfortably against his skin and smothered him so that he could barely breathe? Something was wrong, and Tykon could not bear another moment of not knowing what that was.

"Father?" he called out in a strained voice, the sound of his boots squeaking enough to nauseate him as he took a step, and then another, down the corridor. The lights were flickering dimly, as though the magic that the house run off had barely enough power left to provide illumination—but that was impossible. Magic was limitless, was it not? The flowers that hung in baskets and lined the walls were different, too, and it took Tykon a moment to realise why. They had wilted. He tried to convince himself that it was simply because his mother had forgotten to tend to them recently, knowing really that his mother would sooner kill one of her children than allow the plants to die.

There was only one door in the hallway that had been left ajar. Usually, every door was open so that the family could come and go from room to room as they pleased, allowing the house to be filled with life and chatter as they passed on the corridor and peeked into rooms every now and again. Not only that, but it meant a light breeze was always floating through the house from the opened windows and doors. This was not the case now, with every door save one shut tightly. Even such a small, trivial detail as this made Tykon feel like a stranger who was trespassing in a home that was not his, and he gulped as another wave of anxiety shuddered through him.

He went to the room whose door was slightly open at the end of the corridor, supposing that it must have been the one that his father was in. He soon discovered that he was not wrong—or, at least, he did not think he was, for the man standing in the large study appeared to be his father, but there was something missing from him. He was gazing with glassy eyes out of the window and appeared not to have noticed his son's presence yet. This itself was unusual for Wayde, for he was always alert and never liked to waste time daydreaming, unlike his mother, Cliona, who was always lost in her thoughts.

Tykon cleared his throat in order to break his father out of his daze and shut the door softly behind him, though he was not sure why this sudden habit had overcome him. "I wanted to come sooner, to see that you returned from the war safely, but the Principle wished for me to watch his daughter until he returned himself."

Wayde lowered his eyes, having not so much as glanced at his son yet, and nodded. "I understand. You need not explain yourself, my boy."

My boy. The last time that Wayde had called Tykon that, Tykon had barely been two hundred years old, and it was to tell him that his aunt Rowan had passed away in a battle. If he had needed any confirmation that there was something wrong, he had gotten it now.

Tykon searched the study, squinting in the sunlight. It did not possess its usual warmth, he found, in neither colour nor temperature. Instead, it was a blinding yellow that bled through the windows in a sickly haze and lingered as a cold, uninvited guest. "Where is Mother?"

Wayde did not seem to hear the question as he turned to face his son. The arm that had been hidden before came into view and Tykon saw that it was covered in a white bandage spotted with drops of blood. His face was dirty, too, with thick black dust caking his jaw and cheek and blackening his hair to a murky sapphire colour. "You are hurt."